Liberation
by freeze1
Summary: When Miroku and Sango both insist on taking the first bath, the simple solution seems to be to take one together. [MirokuSango]


A/N: I was utterly tired and didn't want to do homework at all, and so this sort of popped up. I wrote it in about two hours when I really should have been doing something more productive with my time, so I hope you all enjoy. I'm not entirely sure where I was going with it…but I'm still rather proud of it. 

Disclaimer: Inuyasha is property of Rumiko Takahaishi, not mine. 

**Liberation**

Sango growled, vigorously tugging the coarse sandals by the strap and bluntly tossing them aside. 

"I don't understand why you can't just wait until I'm finished," she yelled, untying the ribbon and letting her hair spill about her shoulders. 

"We've been through this. I won the right to bathe first." Miroku's voice was calm and amused, which served only in further angering the Taiji-ya. 

"That's a stupid way of deciding things." She untied the green apron and folded into quarters. 

"It is not. Kagome-sama says that rock-paper-scissors has decided many important things for her." He kicked off his second shoe. 

"It is a stupid game. It's easy to cheat." She pulled off her gloves one by one, which stuck with dripping sweat to her fingers. 

"Are you implying that I cheated?" His hair came undone, fluttering slightly in the night breeze. 

"Do you ever _not_ cheat?" The waistband of her kimono came untied. 

"I'm hurt." His outer robe hit the ground. 

"You should be." She breathed in quickly, and let the pink kimono fall, slinking down her shoulders and piling up around her feet. Self-conscious, she slowly placed her hands covering her chest. She knew it was a stupid precaution; he had been very carefully warned that if he turned around he would never again see the light of day. 

"This is sort of refreshing," he mused. 

"What is?" 

"I don't know. Standing naked in the twilight? It feels liberating." 

They stood back to back, separated by ten feet and piles of clothes, and were silent. Her hands closed tighter around her body, and her eyes focused carefully on her toes, sifting through the dark soil. Sure, _he_ felt liberated. She thought it was nauseating. 

"I'm cold." 

He sighed. "Go in the water, then. It should be warmer." 

"I know." 

Again there was a silence. Sango's eyes turned to the hot spring, a narrow steaming slice out of the earth, cut almost like an hourglass. If he sat on one side and she sat on the other facing opposite directions, he had assured her, there would be no unpleasant confrontations. 

"Why do you insist on bathing now?" She asked, attempting to sound intimidating and strong. It came out in a whisper. 

He shrugged. "I won the game. Why do you insist on getting the first bath?" 

"I'm dirty." She could feel the leaves rustle behind her, and her stomach quickly jolted. 

"Then you're just going to have to bathe with me, I suppose." 

There was a splash, and a few seconds later she heard him laughing, a sound that made her toes curl farther into the dirt. 

"Don't just stand there, Sango, the water's very relaxing." She bit her lip. 

"Y-You better not be looking at me, Houshi-sama, or I'll–" 

"I'm not looking, Sango. Do you think I would mess up this opportunity before you even got into the bath?" 

"…" 

"I meant that as a joke, of course." 

"Of course." Gathering a deep breath, hands still crisscrossed across her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut, took a few steps and hopped into the water. Instantly the hotness surged to her head, and she broke to the surface with a gasp, cascading water droplets throughout the pool. Her breath was ragged, and she could feel the steam radiating off her body. She smiled. 

"What did you do, dive in?" He asked from the other side. With the warm water fogging her eyes, she could barely see down to her own hands sloshing the water about and almost instantly her embarrassment was gone. She flipped a clump of hair over her shoulder and sat on the shallow bottom, twirling her legs around. The water came up a few inches below her collarbone, of which she was very grateful. 

"This is a great spring," she said, rolling her head back. "Why haven't we come here before?" 

"Perhaps because we are lost in the middle of the woods with no idea has to how to return to Kaede-sama's?" Steam filled her ears, her eyes, her nose. 

"Oh, stop being technical." 

Keeping her hands planted onto the rocky ground, she leaned her head back so that only the area from just below her hairline to her chin was visible above the water, wet bangs plastered against wet skin. She could hear some sloshing on his side, as though he was trying to get comfortable. 

"Why, when I won the rights to this bath, am I the one on the side where a large tree branch has obviously quite recently fallen?" He questioned. She smiled, poking a toe out of the water. 

"Because of chivalry?" 

"I thought chivalry was me agreeing not to look at you while you're bathing." 

"No, that's common sense." 

Miroku grumbled a bit on the other side, but then it became silent again, and Sango supposed that he had finally made himself comfortable. The moon lofted through the trees, seemingly leering at the quiet scene before it. Sango stuck her tongue up toward the sky. 

"Do you think Kagome-chan is alright?" She asked with a sigh. 

"Hmm…I suppose that depends on whether or not Inuyasha has decided to act his age. So, I'd say doubtful." 

She bent her head under the water and opened her mouth, shooting it out like little arrows once she re-surfaced. 

"We left him a good half an hour ago. He's probably gone to get her by now." 

"Yes," he answered. "I think we made the right decision to leave on our own." 

She grinned. "So we could bathe, you mean?" 

She heard him chuckle. "Well, so that Inuyasha and Kagome-sama could resolve their petty arguments, but yes, that too." 

"I bet she's okay," Sango said, reassuring herself. "Her family is back home, anyway. It must be hard for her to be away from them for so long. She'll be back soon, I bet." 

"And if not, does that mean that we can just stay here?" 

She frowned, suppressing a laugh. "I told you, Houshi, this is a one-time thing." 

"Not exclusive, no attachments," he echoed, his voice sounding childish next to the soft splashing of water coming from his side of the spring. 

"Do you say that to women a lot?" She asked. 

"You know, you'd think it would work, but apparently women would rather hear that you want it exclusive, you want attachment. Makes the whole business rather difficult, if you ask me." 

"You're impossible." She dunked under water, and quickly shut her eyes to protect them from the stinging heat. Twirling a bit, seemingly weightless, she resurfaced and rubbed at her eyes. 

His back was well sculpted, she noticed. He was sitting, back to her, slabs of hair stuck to his neck, running the water through his hands. She had come up facing the wrong way, she realized. 

"Are you saying that men hate attachment?" The knowledge that she should turn back to where she was, and that he would never notice a thing, was overwhelming. Her ears were ringing. 

"Oh, we don't normally hate it. We're just sort of afraid of it, I suppose. Take Inuyasha, for example." 

"Inuyasha?" He brought his arm out of the water, rubbing beaded hands through his hair. His back rippled with a shrug. 

"He's a guy. Did you ever think he hasn't just come out and told Kagome-sama how he feels about her because he's afraid?" 

"I always thought it was more fear of _rejection_ than that of _attachment_." The shadows created by the moon and the overhanging trees swayed against his figure. 

"Well, sure, that too." There was another silence, and then a sigh. 

"For someone who yells at me so much about not peeking, you're sure doing a lot of it yourself." 

Blood rushed to her face. "Wh-What?! Wait, no, I wasn't trying to…" 

"Ah, so you were peeking, then? It was just a guess, really." 

That feeling of protection in the mask of steam disappeared in an instant. She sank down into the water, feeling exposed, head throbbing. 

"I really didn't mean to," she whispered, water sliding into her mouth as she spoke. 

"I know." She gazed down into the water, and in her embarassment didn't her the slosh of water signaling a change in his position. When she looked back up again, her eyes didn't find the curve of his back, but rather the curve of his smile. 

"If you can peek, so can I." He looked so pleased with himself, his eyebrows arched and his arms folded across his dripping chest. 

"That's not fair!" She attempted to scream, although it came out as more of a strangled whisper. "All I saw was your back!" 

He grinned. "Then turn around, and I'll look at yours." 

Silence echoed throughout the spring. 

"…No." 

She looked away from his bemused smile. "You can just stay like this if you want, then, I can't see anything." 

She nodded. 

The silence seemed to last forever. 

"You don't have to be afraid." 

She kept her eyes focusing on the rippling water. "Who said I was afraid?" 

"You're shivering." 

"The water is getting cold. Maybe I'll get out soon." 

"That's not it." She glanced up. His eyes had narrowed. 

"Kagome-sama has a well to jump into to escape her problems," he said after a pause, "but you…all you have is a whole you've dug out inside yourself." 

"That's not true," she replied quickly, an edge to her voice. 

"We all have too much to worry about…" 

"Stop it, Houshi-sama, you're talking nonsense…" 

"…and for us to be able to ever be happy…" 

"I told you to stop, Houshi-sama!" 

"…shouldn't we be able to trust each other?" His purple eyes were lit by steam. 

"Can't you talk now like you were talking just before, as though there were no barriers between us? Is it because I'm looking at you now?" 

She couldn't find an answer. 

"Even I need to get away from everything once and a while. You don't like to admit it, but you do too." She looked at him for a moment, from his dark bangs dangling into his eyes, to his broad shoulders and sleek neck. 

"You're just saying this so that I'll stay in the lake with you. Pervert." She smiled, lifting her chin out of the water. 

"Well, it seems as though you know me too well, Sango-sama." He bowed his head with mock sadness, a grin spread across his face. 

"But of course. I like to think of myself as the one who knows you best." 

"That's quite ambitious." 

"I'm assuming you believe the feeling to be mutual?" 

"Well of course." 

"Then it's ambitious on your part as well." 

"Well, as the one who knows me best, you ought to realize that I am an ambitious person." 

She smiled, and with a sudden surge of power, she put her hands on the ground and pushed up so that she was standing, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. He looked up at her, his right eyebrow raised. 

She grinned. 

"You're right. It does feel liberating." 

~~~ 

A/N: Well, there we go! The idea is supposed to work on the relationship between the two, the mutual trust that they have with each other that never really gets shown, but is buried down into them, and how in one moment it finally is able to creep to the surface. I love Sango and Miroku, I really do. 


End file.
